Thursday, August 20, 2009

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

What’s love got to do with people and software? (apologies to Tina Turner’s Private Dancer) Hint: if people live for love, then (software) businesses live for money.

When all is as it should be – love is at the heart of our life and value drives our business. Both are vital – and both are very very hard to measure. Its figuring out WHAT to measure that is so difficult. What really matters? How many poems someone writes? How heavily software is being used? Measuring is easy – measuring the right stuff is what is so very very hard.

At PreEmptive, we have been focusing on Microsoft’s Azure. For those that are non-technical (or who think you are but live in a cave and can’t see the horizon), Azure is a massive Microsoft entry into “cloud computing” – an approach that takes all the worry, hassle and expense of managing computers away (into a cloud) making software very much like a phone service – all (or most) equipment is shared by massive numbers of people and managed for you. Cloud users simply pay to use the service.

Unlike phones, however, software builders and buyers are not all that used to this business model – technically – it’s not that big a deal – but from a business perspective – figuring out what you pay for, how its measured, and what the costs will actually be – this is all new! Ms Browning measures her love in "depth, breadth, and height" - could software value be harder to measure than love?

If wireless phone companies did not charge by the minute, no one would count minutes – we would just talk. Well, developers have just been “talking” for their entire professional careers – and now they have to start structuring their work around these new rules to avoid waste and expense. Azure (and other competitive cloud platforms) is not really a technology innovation as much as it is a major shift in business model.

So, whether you are a romantic (like Ms Browning “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height”) or perhaps more hardened like Papillon Soo in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, one thing is for sure - Microsoft’s Azure wants to “love you long time.”

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About Me

Grew-up in Westbeth, the world's largest artist community. (www.westbeth.org) I rebelled and went into the world of commercial software where I have been for over 30 years. I am currently EVP & Chief Strategy Officer at PreEmptive Solutions. (www.preemptive.com)